Aviation Briefing Service - Guidance

Our Aviation Briefing Service provides weather information to pilots to support flight safety. You can access the most comprehensive UK aviation weather forecast and observations via PC, tablet or mobile.

Log in to the Aviation Briefing Service.

Read our Statement of Operational Use.

If you require briefing information for commercial use, please contact [email protected].

Please refer to our user guide for more information on the Aviation Briefing Service.

Cost

The Aviation Briefing Service is free of charge for non-commerical pilots flying within the UK and includes up-to-the-minute forecasts and observations.

Once you've registered for the free version, you can upgrade to Premium for just £57.60 per year, including VAT.

• Register for the Aviation Briefing Service - Free version
• Upgrade to Premium or renew

For examples of weather information provided in the Premium version, click on the ticks in the table below.

Change to Premium Service

The Met Office has taken the decision to retire our European weather model.  As a result it has been necessary to cease the following weather map products from the Premium version of the ABS:

• European forecast precipitation rate & type
• European forecast surface visibility

We appreciate that you may have found these useful for planning flights across Europe.  Equally the Met Office recognises that our role on behalf of our regulator, the CAA, is to provide a range of products for the UK Flight Information Region.

For weather products outside of the UK, the CAA advice is for pilots to utilise, as necessary company flight planning systems or weather information from the country’s Met service provider that you are flying to. 

We can also confirm that the European weather radar product continues to be available on the briefing service portal covering much of western Europe, as well as other Premium features including the following, all at the price of £57.60 per year, including VAT, which has been held for 6 years:

• Extended period Synoptic charts
• High level wind, temperature and significant weather charts
• Near European SIGMETs
• Increased resolution (5 minute) weather radar
• European satellite imagery
• UK High resolution forecast map layers - Precipitation type, Visibility, Total cloud, Cloud layers, Fog